Report from PharmaSUG 2014

Just getting back from PharmaSUG 2014 in San Diego. The conference was great, both inside and outside. The organizers ordered up some great weather for the Padres game and also for dinner on the flight deck of the Midway Carrier.

Warren Kuhfeld presented ways to customize the popular Survival Plot graph created by the LIFETEST Procedure for SAS 13.1 using a combination of %ProvideSurvivalMacros, Customization macros, %CompileSurvivalTemplates to create the customized templates, and then run the LIFETEST procedure to produce the customized graph output.

As usual, PharmaSUG lived up to its reputation of taking care of its attendees by providing fabulous food for breakfast, lunch and dinners. In addition to all the knowledge, I feel like I also gained 5 pounds.

For me, the highlight is always meeting and interacting with SAS users, who bring so much enthusiasm to the conference. One quote that I took back to my team from a presentation was "Making graphs with SAS is FUN". It is nice to get validation of our efforts to provide you the tools you need to easily create beautiful and effective graphs with SAS.

About Author

Sanjay Matange is R&D Director in the Data Visualization Division responsible for the development and support of the ODS Graphics system, including the Graph Template Language (GTL), Statistical Graphics (SG) procedures, ODS Graphics Designer and related software. Sanjay has co-authored a book on SG Procedures with SAS/PRESS.

8 Comments

I completely agree that it was a great conference and I'm so glad you liked my quote! Unfortunately I think we've got our work cut out for us convincing people that graphing in SAS is fun. I usually get a lot of groans and "Graphs are so complicated!" whenever I mention which section I presented in. 🙂

Hello Sanjay,
Thank you for listing me in this blog, and it was a lot of fun discussing graphs with you and the other presenters at the conference. Wanted to send a quick note to let you know that my name is misspelled as Jeffery Meyer instead of Jeffrey Meyers in the blog.

Yes, Indeed. It was great fun to meet with all of you who are making graphs using SAS, and hear about your successes and the problems you are facing. Sorry about the mis-spelling of the name. Now fixed.